


portrait of a girl, gone now away

by alpacas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, also someone says the f-word, by someone i mean nott. nott totally says the f-word, pre………canon?, so many spoilers. just so so many of them, warning for slightly pretentious formatting but not on like house of leaves level
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 11:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17827961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: time.





	portrait of a girl, gone now away

**Author's Note:**

> i can only write two things.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Veth Brenatto.

 

 

Veth was born just past noon on a dark spring day. Her mother was working outside, a hood and cloak drawn up against the drizzling rain, the chilly breeze. It was early in the year, and the ground still muddy and cold and she was trying to get the kitchen garden planted when the pains started. She had two sons already and knew what it meant; judged she still had time and planted the rest of the peas.

It was old Mrs. Surrel Veth's mother went to, when the pain was coming more and quicker: her husband and sons were in the field. They couldn't afford to rent as much land as the year before, the harvest had been hard, and it was more important that they get the crops planted. And so Veth was born on Mrs. Surrel's bed in Mrs. Surrel's house, bundled and brought home and introduced to her father and brothers when they returned, muddy, for dinner.

 

 

 

Wait.

 

 

 

 

Luke was born after Veth had been in labor for well over a day. The pains had started in the early afternoon and then continued, and continued, until both she and Yeza were certain something was dreadfully wrong. It wasn't until the last hour that her contractions came quicker, and when Mrs. Palda told her to push, Luke came almost at once. The whole thing was terrifying but easier than Veth had expected, although part of her had hoped for a girl.

Luke had her eyes and Yeza's nose and possibly her grandfather's chin. They bundled him up and laid him on the store's counter in his basket, among the medicinal herbs, and the first week the apothecary had thrice the normal business, with all their neighbors coming in to see him. Something Veth took pride in: her son's obvious beauty and charm, and his early business acumen. "Eighteen silver in one day," she'd said proudly after his first day with her at the counter, as she marked the ledger at the kitchen table. "That's a new record."

Yeza had been holding Luke, pacing back and forth to settle him down. "Lucky you married such a good alchemist."

"Lucky that Luke is so cute."

 

 

 

 

_Wait._

 

 

 

 

Veth's mother died when she was thirteen. A plague was sweeping the village, and a dozen died in all before a cleric could be sent for from Zadash. Veth's oldest brother had been sick as well, but he was younger and stronger and recovered.

It was very sad.

Her father lost some of his spirit after that, but Veth and her second oldest brother helped step up around the home to make up for the loss: cooking and cleaning as their father and older brother managed the farm, working twice as hard for them both. Their father would return home tired and empty at the end of the day. Their brother would return exhausted and unhappy.

Veth would leave home, just to get away for a while. She was in school but had the feeling she should quit. She'd wander around Felderwin and occupy herself looking for treasures, looking for things to notice, escape routes and secrets, anything to keep her mind busy and working. She was small for her age and hadn't reached puberty at all, and the boys would pick on her and the girls would giggle. Flat chested baby faced Veth, poking around alleys and cutting up paper!

One day Jad yelled to her from down the street, hanging out with some of his friends: "Hey! Stupidveth!" That was all. Nothing big. She'd heard worse, a lot worse, and she'd kept walking, like she always did. _Stupidveth_. What a dumb nickname. A dumb shitty nickname.

Something in her snapped. She scooped snow off a windowsill and balled it in her mittened hands and turned back and ran to the laughing boys, ran right up to them and pelted the closest one in the face. Stood there glaring, feeling tall, her chest heaving, as they all turned to her in shocked stunned surprise. "Fuck you!" Veth had said, the first time she'd ever personally said the word aloud.

And then she'd run away.

 

 

 

 

Did any of these things happen?

 

 

 

 

She had two elder brothers. One was four years older, brilliant and quick, always ready with a joke but fast to impatience and anger. Felderwin was too small for him, he would have done best in a city, Zadash, somewhere with schools and those with skills and opportunities to present. Instead he farmed and drank heavily and grew bitter with time, squandered his chances and grew to hate farming.

The other was only a year and a half older, steady and eager to please. He worshiped his older brother and wanted to be just like him, was his eager acolyte. He inherited the family farm as neither his elder brother or younger sister needed or wanted it. Married young and quickly had three children, all girls, of his own.

They teased and were impatient with the little sister tagging along after them, didn't intervene when the local kids saw her as a target too. Their relationship cooled as they all entered adulthood: they didn't fight or tease, but no longer either laughed or talked.

 

 

 

 

Is any of this true?

 

 

 

 

A few weeks before their wedding, Yeza looked sideways at Veth and asked her: "do you remember the time you pelted me with a snowball?"

They were in the wood by the river, where the soil was piney and sandy and wild lavender could be found amid the trees. Lavender could be used to prevent bug bites and soothe their stings, to relax and soothe and when mixed in potions, help sleep, and so they were gathering it, that hot early summer day.

Veth had buried her nose in the stalks of flowers and looked up at him suspiciously. He had smiled: her nose and chin hidden by purple buds, her blue eyes narrowed, her hair already mostly undone from its braids, the sun bringing out the flashes of red in the brown. And her face squinting and suspicious, and her long skirt stained with an inch of mud at the hem. She was in that moment both the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, and the funniest looking.

"When was this?" she asked.

"When we were kids."

"I never did," she said primly, cutting the stalks of flowers, a flush darkening her cheeks.

"Pelted me in the face."

"Did you deserve it?" She clicked her tongue. "I bet you deserved it."

"Right," he says, tapping his jaw, "in the face."

"I don't remember."

"Jad was picking on you. You ran off and we all thought you were gone, and then all at once you came pelting back and _wham_. Right in my face."

"Oh," Veth said, "Okay, now I remember. Your own fault for being shithead adjacent."

"Shithead adjacent?"

"Just like leaving me to pick all your flowers while you reminisce, actually."

"Lo, the love of my life," he said grandly, taking the lavender she thrust into his arms. Veth tried her best to look angry, to look superior, and failed. And he laughed delighted at the sight of her.

 

 

 

 

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Veth Brenatto.

Wait.

That was my name when I married.

What was my name before?

 

 

 

 

One day, Veth woke up and realized she couldn't remember her parent's names. Her brother's names. The name of her brother's wife and the names of her nieces. She'd sat up alone in the goblin camp clutching her head, folding her ears against the skin until it hurt, and tried to remember. Her mother had blue eyes. Or was it brown? Veth had blue eyes, or was that Luke? She went to school until she was sixteen, or did she leave when she was twelve?

Trembling and clutching at herself until she'd realized all she could do was try to escape the flood, decide what she couldn't forget and let go of all her other possessions.

My husband's name is Yeza. My son's name is Luke. I love Yeza a lot and I love Luke more. We have an apothecary. I am Veth. My name is Veth. And I am a halfling girl.

 

 

 

 

 

One day, a girl wakes up, and a goblin calls out to her: "Wake up, notta goblin, get me food," and because she is at the bottom of the hierarchy she gets up, and thinks only vaguely, _yes, I_ am _Nott_.

And to Nott, the meat pile smells incredible: the rotting flesh, deer and rat and horse and humanflesh and one moldy gnoll. She gathers up a rat and a few chunks of something still bloody and really, really wants to sneak just a bite for herself, something sinewy she can chew and enjoy on all day —

 _Veth,_  she thinks. And freezes.

 

 

 

 

Veth was born —— on a —— day. it was early —— it was very sad.

it wasn't until —— she ——

married young ——

something in her snapped.

 

 

 

 

_lo, the love of my life._

 

 

 

 

 

One day, Nott wakes up and thinks: my name was Veth Brenatto.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
